My experience is that helicopter-enforced highways are used at times when the state can hope to catch an inordinated number of speeders.
Each year at Spring Break time, Interstate 10 between the Alabama-Florida state line and Panama City, FL was fairly heavily patrolled by helicopters, or so it seemed (at least back in the early '90s. They busted spring-breakers left and right every year.
At other times of the year, the helicopters were nowhere to be found.